Neil Young readies Pono music service for expansion Part 4

OTOH, I've done this and can usually tell the difference. Where I usually can't is with an analog master downsampled from 24/192 to 24/96, although with most recent digital masters I can.

 

There is nothing new in what you are quoting, however it still misses the point. I don't have any problem with measurements, but they don't tell the whole story. If good measurements aren't consistent with good sound then you are measuring the wrong thing or your measuring instrument is too coarse to detect subtle differences. I trust my ears first.

Double blind tests can be conducted with many variables. The room, the equipment, the source, and the listeners' experience all come into play.

 

Ok, using the experienced measuring instruments of your ears, exactly how many betterness points does HiRes score over Redbook?

 

Agreed, but did you miss my note on "mysterious effects that science does not understand"? I am totally open to that but they should still be revealed in controlled listening tests - which note are subjective in nature, not about measurements.

Tim

 

I don't want to reproduce the long post regarding the study you quoted above except to say the number of uncontrolled variables seems to be through the roof. I cannot imagine that study would stand up to strict scrutiny and peer review. Also by today's standards a $1,000 system is a nice Phone with a B&W dock. That is hardly state of the art.

Since you are convinced already, you obviously don't need to listen to different sources. Don't buy a Pono if you don't want one; but hanging around here to argue against higher quality sound reproduction is like going to France to explain to them why buying wine in a box is perfection and it is a waste of money to drink vintage spirits. Unless that's your idea of fun.

 

But Pono costs only $300 so it must be rubbish at hires by that logic?

 

I agree but "double blind studies" are a bit like statistics you must look at how the data was compiled and analyzed to see what they really mean. I do think consistent results should be attainable.

 

Also, how are the variables through the roof when you are testing 2 recordings from the same source on the same kit and you are presumably the same person? It's perfectly obvious this is a good enough trial and the results back up what science already says.

 

Not at all, my new i-phone sounds much better than my last one. Neither was super expensive but the do have different DACs. I think that statement might reveal your bias.

 

So what's the problem with $1000 kit then? That's more than most spend on their music hear and anyway he also says some had rigs worth more than 10k and they still couldn't tell the difference.

 

If you can't see what I'm talking about then there is nothing I can add that will help you to understand.

 

Maybe I'll just buy a Pono and speak to God then.

 

On what scale? On 1-100 scale I would give high rez a solid 14 points.

 

Tell us about your Pono listening experience, bennyboy, please.

 

No, but I actually have listened to a Pono, have you?

 

The limited edition signature models are chrome. Nice try though.

 

Hilarious! Let me guess, it also made you think of porno!

 

Have to say you are good at intermediate knowledge. The Earth is actually an oblate spheroid.

 

I don't know if you will ever realize this but everything you've posted in this thread suggests you would have told Magellan he fell off the edge of the earth even though he circumnavigated it.

Also, the earth is not a sphere.

 

You forgot (or maybe didn't know) to point out that this is true for infinite duration signals. If the signal is not infinite duration, infinity still must be worked in somehow. Check Shannon's paper (the section on "Continuous Sources"--oh, continuous sources are rather important as well, and too often overlooked). For non-infinite duration, you need to have an infinite sampling rate.

 

Sounds like you might want to read the Wikipedia Talk page for a near-infinite discussion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem/Archive_2

Tim

 

"there was no evidence that 24-bit audio could be appreciably differentiated from the same music dithered down to 16-bits..."

"Limitations of the study includes the fact that this was an open test distributed via the Internet in an uncontrolled fashion."

A controlling bias surfaces quickly in the authors final conclusion: despite the fact that a sizable portion of the test group did differentiate between the two, there was "no" evidence.... Apparently the music samples were pre-selected. The familiarity of the subjects with the music is unknown. And the limitations of the study barely hint at the lack of controls. Interesting too that a sizable number of the subjects also (self) report being an 'engineer' and the combination of musician/engineer. It'd be interesting to know what formal credentials they have to be asserting themselves as engineers.

Nevertheless, I don't inherently disagree with the general premise that most people don't hear the (admittedly subtle) differences at issue here. Even in audio get togethers its clear people 'listen' to music very differently, have different perceptive faculties, and different expectations from what they listen to.

 

Yes, that is indeed "near-infinite" in length...though there is little enough music in any of it.

Even when they touch on Shannon's "Continuous Sources" section they circumvent the point I was making.

Extracting from the Wikipedia Talk page...

Further evidence that Shannon was aware that his sampling theorem is applicable to discontinuous signals is contained in section XII. CONTINUOUS SOURCES of his paper. He explained that continuous signals may be broken into discontinuous ones and that the aliasing error (due to high frequencies at the discontinuity) could be quantified and tolerated (e.g. check sums for digital data sent over analog channel):

If the source is producing a continuous function of time, then without further data we must ascribe it an infinite rate of generating information. In fact, merely to specify exactly one quantity which has a continuous range of possibilities requires an infinite number of binary digits. We cannot send continuous information exactly over a channel of finite capacity. Fortunately, we do not need to send continuous messages exactly. A certain amount of discrepancy between the original and the recovered messages can always be tolerated. If a certain tolerance is allowed, then a definite finite rate in binary digits per second can be assigned to a continuous source. It must be remembered that this rate depends on the nature and magnitude of the allowed error between original and final messages.

Dicklyon your point about the signal being infinite in time and T only applying to the channel is irrelevant. Oli your point that my example signal is not contained with the parameters given by Shannon, is not true as my explanation above shows. I think the problem you are having is you have been accustomed to applying what Shannon wrote only to the continuous time domain signals, and as I said in my original edit, that discontinuous signals such as Fat tail are also handled by Shannon's theorem-- the proof is explained above. You don't need to go introducing other theorems about channel noise, as that is irrelevant. Shannon's sampling theorem is applicable to any idealized signal, whether it be continuous or discontinuous during it's period. Shannon is obviously aware of that, by the very general way he wrote his theorem. If you can't bring yourself to understand such a simple concept, then there will be some limit to how many of your misunderstandings I can continue to reply to. I do not say this to be disrespectful, but rather because my time for this is limited. Thank you.
--Shelbymoore3 (talk) 02:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Oli you erroneously claimed that the aliasing was due to not meeting the bandwidth requirement of my example signal, but I can prove you are wrong in 2 ways. First, it is obviously that if the signal is not sampled for at least 1 day in duration, then the pulses will sometimes not even appear in the samples. That is not high frequency aliasing, but aliasing due to insufficient sampling interval. Second, if the bandwidth of the pulse is taken to be W, then the even if I sample at 2TW, then if T is less than 1 day, I will still get the type of aliasing where sometimes the pulse is never showing up at all in my samples-- that is clearly not aliasing due to insufficient W support. --Shelbymoore3 (talk) 04:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


Kind of what netboys do, I guess.

I've made the direct Shannon lift from the Wiki green. That is exactly the start of Shannon's "Continuous Sources" section, and it is quite germain to the point I was making. However, to properly complete that you need to go further on into that particular section by Shannon, his expression (44) would be a good destination. I don't think I can put the proper mathematics on this page so you'll have to search that out yourself.

But you and I will not replicate the length of that Wiki discussion. This is not the time nor place for it. Still, since you presented me with reading matter, it's only appropriate that I do as much for you: http://www.thinkmind.org/download.php?articleid=sysmea_v2_n1_2009_1

 

Thanks, it makes a nice change from stair steps

Tim

 

No. Why would you think that? You're welcome to dial back on the snark and defensiveness. On my HD I've got legally downloaded hi-rez classical music that's worth more than the price of a Pono, and that requires gapless playback. I think it's quite fair to be disappointed that Pono shipped without that feature.